


the second time around

by myclgy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:50:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4401527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myclgy/pseuds/myclgy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave and Dirk's relationship from both sides of a mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the second time around

_He has big square hands and wiry forearms and sometimes you have dreams where he takes his shades off and there are no eyes underneath. You love him with your whole self, because he is the only thing you have to love, and because you have not yet been taught that love isn’t supposed to hurt._

He's narrowbodied (for now) and his shoulders slope and he doesn’t meet your eyes when he talks to you. Doesn’t talk much at all, just stares so hard you can hear the synapses firing behind his eyes. You don’t talk much either, not to him.

_He smells sharp like liquor and his callouses are rough against your skin and he hurts you and he hurts you and he hurts you. The whole world is red and white and black._

He makes an aborted move to touch you, once, and suddenly there are big hands around you and you can’t breathe, the whole world is black and white and red, it shatters above you and the fragments rain down on your head. You flinch away like you’ve been scalded. What you really want to do is say wait, come closer, look at me, please. What you really want to do is shake him by the shoulders until answers come out. What you really want to do is cry. He doesn’t try to touch you again.

_You are a bitter and hard-kneed eight years old, and you’ve taken to burning the pale underbelly of your arm with matches in secret. You strife on the roof until your body is water, even though by now you know you’ll never win. You do it not because you want to, but for the hard-won nod that Bro gives you before slinging you over his shoulder and carrying you back into the apartment. You’ve dully come to the realization that he has never loved you, but you hold a secret hope close to your heart that if you strife hard enough, work hard enough, be good enough, he will begin to._

He asks you to get him a cup of coffee, and because old emotion hangs around the two of you like specters, you comply, obsequious and without complaint. The coffee machine burbles and spits out tar-colored liquid, and you prepare it as you would for yourself: more milky nectar than actual brew. When you hand it over to Dirk, he takes one look at it and hands it back to you. I drink it black, he says, and when you take the mug back from him your hands are shaking so hard that coffee licks over its rim and burns your fingers. Sorry, you say, I’m sorry, and your voice is so small.

_All you will ever be is his hand down your pants, his wounds on your skin, his voice telling you off. His. All you will ever be is a collage of bruises and cuts, a latticework of a person between your broken parts and things that he has stolen._

I talked to Rose, he says. She told me about. You. And other me. A pause. I don’t know what to say. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything at all. That would be, like, making excuses. And there aren’t any. For him or for me. He sits down next to you, swings his legs down into the void.  
It’s fine, you tell him.  
Is it?  
I didn’t like him much, you say, and that’s all there is to it. And you’re not lying. But. You loved him, you did, and that isn’t a lie either. You don’t have to like someone to love them. Love is helpless, involuntary. You hated him too, to be sure, with force that left you sick to your stomach and swallowing panic, but. But. You loved him in equal measure, with a furious, indignant intensity, and the line between your love and your hate was smudged and indistinct. You hate that you loved him.  
You don’t have anything to apologize for, anyway, you continue. You didn’t do anything.  
He shrugs. I’m doing it anyway.  
You feel like crying, all of a sudden, so you turn your head away from him, and after a fragile collection of moments, you tentatively lean into his shoulder. His hand floats diaphanously over your arm for a second, before it settles down gingerly and strokes back and forth. He has big square hands.


End file.
